What We Still Don’t Know About the Malaysia Airlines Disappearance

As the world has become increasingly transfixed with the mysterious and utterly tragic disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, no answers have been forthcoming to the many questions raised over the weekend. On Saturday, a large oil slick was spotted in the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, but tests of the liquid revealed that it didn’t match the oil that would have been on the plane. On Sunday, a Vietnamese search aircraft spotted what was thought to be a door from the plane, but it turned out to be a piece of unrelated floating garbage.

Currently, authorities suspect that the plane, for unknown reasons, may have come apart at its cruising altitude. “The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet,” a source told Reuters over the weekend. The pilots also apparently did not have the time, or ability, to radio in a distress signal.

Searchers have not been able to find a concentrated grouping of debris from the flight, which was carrying 239 passengers from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, which would have been the expected pattern, had the plane shattered on impact. Instead, the lack of any such debris at all points to a high-altitude incident some are comparing to the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. In that case, the cause of the detonation was a terrorist bomb. As of now, there is no physical evidence of any kind to point to a reason for the flight’s disappearance, let alone evidence of foul play.

Still, the existence of two passengers on the flight manifest who registered with stolen passports has raised eyebrows in the media. The men appeared to be traveling together, having bought one-way tickets at the same travel agency in Thailand. Malaysian authorities are currently examining video footage of the men, and have reportedly identified one of them (believed to be “non-Malaysian,” according to the BBC.) The real owners of the stolen passports, who both reported the thefts, are alive and well.